We recently connected with Chris Duran and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Chris , so happy to have you on the platform with us today and excited to chat about your lessons and insights. Our ability to make good decisions can massively impact our lives, careers and relationships and so it would be very helpful to hear about how you built your decision-making skills.
This is an interesting question because of how decisive I have learned to be compared to how indecisive I was earlier in
my life. Thinking back to those times, I almost feel like a completely different person. I would over
analyze the simplest options and make no choice or I did not care about any particular outcome all-together and in a lot
of ways choices were made for me. Eventually, I spent a considerable amount of time reflecting and envisioning how I
wanted my life to be and how I wanted to get there. I learned that putting your absolute trust for anyone else to make
important decisions for you and hoping that they have your best interest at hand, was a power I really should not have
given away so freely. We all have our own paths to walk in life, finding our purpose and what ignites your soul is
extremely important and developing that ability to make choices that reflect those passions is difficult but necessary.
Years ago I made a choice to leave my home town, at the time it was one of the hardest things I could do but I was able
to experience life in such a way that I was able to return to my home city as a more well-rounded person. I
embarked on what seemed like thousands of unique obstacles and I made my fair share of life long friendships I would
have never had, life had developed into something more than just work for me. As I became more aware of the spaces I
occupied and the effect my presence had on it during my travels, I realized my doubts and fears were
were nothing more than illusions in my head. There is a clarity that came with that, from making important
deductions about business, home life, technical diagnosis and repairs….The right answers seem to come more easily.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I found myself to naturally fall in line with the ever-evolving and complex world the automotive industry has to
offer. In my youth I was fortunate to have various mentors that were all highly skilled individuals in the trades from;
upholstery, machinist type work, welding/fabrication, automotive repairs, diagnosis of complex technical and
mechanical systems. Being around these types of people since I day one, I developed a unique ability to see things
from so many perspectives that when something is broke or not functioning as it was designed, I see an opportunity to
find a solution and to do it with grace and tact that hopefully inspires the next generation of thinkers. The work and skills
required are more of a refined art form now than just reading some over engineered flow-chart or a watered down Ikea
instruction manual, expecting the unexpected and knowing how to find solutions when there is no obvious answer is
always satisfying.
The path to pursuing mastery of any trade is difficult, it requires much of your time and dedication, some luck and
the right people in the most unlikely of places to guide you. When I was in the eighth grade I had a
language arts teacher who everyone rumored to be one of the meanest and had the toughest class to take, of course, I
ended up front row of every lecture. She had this sort of mental gymnastics event towards the end of the year where
students performed various tasks that seemed random at best. There was math puzzles, timed reading segments, and
a fairly complicated puzzle you had to solve blind-folded! It was during this time, when I took that test that I started to
understand some of my strengths as an individual. I was able to study the puzzle before it was disassembled, I noticed
the curves, how long they were, the sizes of the cut out shapes, etc… Then she placed the blind fold on my head and I
was able to put the puzzle back together in just under a minute by feel of the individual shapes, while the rest of the
class wasn’t even close to finishing. I could envision each part of the puzzle in my head as I was assembling the
scattered pieces and to my surprise I had received high praise from this supposedly mean teacher upon completion. I
did not realize it at the time but that revealed key truths about my potential capabilities as a skilled automotive
technician.
These types of tests that were seemingly unrelated to my eventual career path helped me understand how
my brain was wired. That gave me an edge as I was able to keep up with mechanics who had significantly more
years of experience than I did, once I graduated from high school and enrolled into the university of hard knocks, I
hit the ground running. I learned what it meant to be a true diagnostician reading from some of the most influential
teachers in the business, Paul Danner, Brandon Steckler, Jim Morton… The list of instructors who have contributed to
the industry with their knowledge is impressive and I highly recommend their books and classes to any technician
working in the trenches. Being able to interpret oscilloscope wave forms that aid in accurate diagnostics and
recommended repairs was such a game changer and further ignited my passion for solving problems
right the first time. Ignition firing events, in-cylinder pressure transducer applications, relative compression tests,
intake and exhaust pressure pulse acquisition, is the peak of super nerd automotive and I am here for it all.
These days while implementing my current abilities in repair and diagnosis, I am now learning what happens behind the
scenes and the inner workings of an automotive business. I am far from the best in that regard however with aspirations
to ascend from successful technician to converted successful business manager/owner I have found plenty of great
resources from my family member’s experiences running their operations for over fifty years to some of the great
members of the Automotive Shop Owners Group (ASOG), Shout-out Mr. Roman and the “Changing The Industry”
podcast crew.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Learn from every experience, good or bad, there is a lesson to be had in some way but take time to reflect on them.
Understand how to approach a challenge with the right mindset and when to walk away from something that has you
beat. If you can take time to get your head right, you will likely be more efficient with a calmer demeanor. Being honest
with yourself and your current capabilities will be far beneficial to the team than over selling and under delivering.
I could write a book on some of my failures but I have found it is easier to demonstrate proficiency to the next
generation than tell old war stories.
Most importantly, if you don’t know something, get the right training and ask for help. There is no shame in that.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I would like to work with individuals who are confident in their skills, honest in their abilities, and share a passion for
producing their best work. There is a nation-wide technician shortage, most automotive repair facilities can agree on
that. One of my goals is to create an environment and culture that will naturally attract talented individuals and
prospects. In a perfect world that is equally easier done than said, however the automotive industry is seemingly in a
perpetual state of flux. Some shops are running their daily operations like it is the 1990’s others are strictly electric
vehicle specialists and everything in between. There is a difficult standardization that needs to be established and
maintained that benefits all those employed in this industry. I welcome anyone on board who is willing to be apart of
that changing tide.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisx.duran/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.duran.96558061
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-duran-256b59217/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisxduran
